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Re: How steep of a driveway???

depends on whether the car is lowered or not. if it is, then it depends on just exactly how low it is. also whether you are going to have an aftermarket spoiler on the front or the OEM one. The OEM is a lot more forgiving than some of the others. I have a rather steep driveway also and have to come up it at an angle. I absolutely can't lower my car or put CF front spoiler on if I wanted to due to the certainty of it getting damaged or not even being able to drive up it.

Re: How steep of a driveway???

The steepness of the slope is irrelevant once you're on it - it's the transition between grades at the intersection of the drive & street that is critical. I have a steep drive with an abrupt transition that is exacerbated by a drainage gutter at the intercept. On top of that the street is actually on another down-grade perpendicular to my driveway!
However, even though my car is lowered, I can accommodate it by cutting the angle at 45 deg as I transition across the intercept. If I was coming from the downhill side of the street though, forget it!

If you are designing a driveway from scratch make it flatter at the bottom (at the street intersection) then gradually transitioning somewhat exponentially to the final grade, as opposed to a fixed linear slope at a fixed angle to the street. Think of the drive as a series of small angular changes rather than a single abrupt one. The greater the distance between these changes in angle the easier it will be.

Re: How steep of a driveway???

I couldn't get mine into the garage for 2 weeks after I bought it for this reason! I finallly had the city come out and re-grade my driveway approach. Also, I found that coming in on an angle helps considerably.

If you're entering into a downward sloping driveway on the left, get the left front tire over first, then angle the car so that the left rear and right front hit the grade at the same time. That way you stradle the hump long-ways with a shorter distance between extremes.

Before discovering this I accidentally ground a half inch of aluminum off of one of the jack tabs on the frame. Not a sound I want to hear ever again.